The head of Sweden’s National IT Crime Unit says that following the introduction of IPRED anti-piracy legislation it has become more difficult to track down serious criminals. This unfortunate eventuality is a side-effect of ISPs throwing away logging data to protect the privacy of their customers. While this protects casual file-sharers, it unfortunately protects serious criminals too.
It’s been exactly one year since the introduction of the controversial IPRED anti-piracy legislation in Sweden and it has been a great success for everyone involved. Not only have legitimate online media availability and sales increased, piracy has both increased and decreased, pirates have been left alone and VPN providers are doing a roaring trade.
A new report by a consultancy firm specializing in analyzing consumer consumption of digital media reveals that during the last quarter of 2009, increasing numbers of Swedes accessed unauthorized movies and TV shows online. The research indicates that the downward trend provoked by the introduction of the IPRED legislation is over.
After months of waiting, the Ipredator anonymity service from the founders of The Pirate Bay has finally opened its doors to the public. For 5 euros a month users can now hide all their Internet traffic, including torrent downloads, from third party outfits who might want to spy on their downloading habits.
The Swedish ISP TeliaSonera is refusing to comply with a court ruling ordering the company to hand over information identifying the owner of SweTorrents. Instead, it has appealed the decision, arguing that the verdict is in violation of the European data retention directive and claiming that SweTorrents doesn’t host any copyrighted files.
Music industry group IFPI has today submitted a request to the Stockholm District Court to force an ISP to hand over the personal details of an alleged file-sharer. The action marks the first time a request has been made by the organization under the IPRED legislation introduced in April.
Today a Swedish court has ruled that the ISP TeliaSonera must hand over the identity of the Swetorrents BitTorrent tracker operator to anti-piracy group, Antipiratbyrån, which is working on behalf of four movie studios. The case is the second brought under the controversial IPRED legislation.
